Greetings! Would someone explain to me the pros/cons of choosing a xxxGB/month option over a x mbps option, or visa versa?

1mbps = 325 GB approx actual transfer/month

As long as line by the mbps is NOT capped there will be no real advantage or disadvantage. By GB is usually being oversold and therefore you may be able to get cheaper pricing. Per MBPS dedicated lines will be more expensive!

all in all, if you are doing something like streaming video ... with a steady amount of users through the day/month... Mbps... otherwise... GB is the way to go... just works out better for the client in most cases... depending on what rate the host charges for Mbps vs GB... usually... when getting a burstable feed... say you got a 1Mbps connection... that'd equate to about 200GB of actual usage... heh... :) i know in theory its 324GB... but in reality... with bursting... and taking the 95th percentile into consideration... 200GB...

And if you have x mbits and lots of people try to access your site at once it will slow down if there isn't enough bandwidth.

Originally posted by IT Hosting
And if you have x mbits and lots of people try to access your site at once it will slow down if there isn't enough bandwidth.

Only if its capped really - if its burstable to a decent rate then this isn't a problem.

I think what he's asking is what's the advantage of 1mbps (burstable) 95 percentile vs 320 actual gb bandwidth

Yeah i was thinking of getting a server with a 3mbps line ather then the 400gig actuall. What i was worried about if the 3mbps line can handle the traffic better then the 400gig actuall. Lets say there were one day 1000 users online on the server at one time will it cope on a 3mbps line ok or would the 400gig a month 100 line be better.

GB/month means that you share a (big) line with others and you are allowed do push xxGB/month, if more you will be billed. ALso there are no guarantees to the speed actually.

Mbit/s means that you actually get a dedicated line of xxmbps. The speed is of course limited to that line though but also in your favor as there are no others that can slow you down. You have that designated speed 24/7; it is YOUR LINE exactly as the provider you get it from has, only smaller. Also there are of course no overage fees as there is no such thing.

Hope that helped :)

Thank you. For that. Sorry what i was asking though was this. I needed to explain a bit better i think. On the 3mbps line i assume there is a limit how much traffic you can have at anytime though. So what i wanted to know how busy can your site be at one time before this becamoes a problem I understand that there are many factors but there is hopefully a guide how much traffic you can pull at one time as to users or hits on line at one point in time.

Which would you think is better for a startup web host: 3mbps Cogent or 400GB multihomed bandwidth?

The Cogent is $30/mo and the multihomed is $1.25/GB.

I like the 3mbps deal because I will not have to worry about exceeding my bandwidth limits and being charged for it. Thanks.

Yeah i like the 3mbps too. I must say me sites are at the moment on rackshack servers and appert from last week i had no sisues witht he sites going down in the last 12 months. The only thing no one can explain to me how much traffic i can genereate at one time for the server at the same single time. Before i would have to upgrade. The reason why i say this is if we had the 100 meg line sure the limit is 400gig a month but.... i could have a very heavy day on the server and use 100 gig in one day. Not sure if that is possible anyway but then could i do that in one day on the 3mpbs line. or that would just collapse.